Credit is not Money

A surprise came for me in the mail last week. It was strange lifting the heavy envelope my bank had sent me, mostly because my bank never sends me anything anymore now that I’ve subscribed to e-statements. I opened the envelope and discovered that my bank had sent me a credit card. Earlier this year I sent in an application, but with my current employment situation I was almost positive they wouldn’t grant me such a nifty tool. Although I didn’t believe it to be possible, one fatal error happened when I opened that envelope: I felt proud. Not proud that I could now spend $1,500 on anything of my choice, but proud because I actually had some sort of token of my adulthood. Not having a drivers licence, I cannot purchase lottery tickets or alcohol (or pornography, god forbid I see enough of that everywhere else), and I haven’t voted yet so it sort of feels like I haven’t done anything a person my age has the right to do. Of course, once you feel proud of something you feel the need to tell those around you about it. This is where the problem began.

Normally when you tell someone you’re proud of a particular item or event in your life they congratulate you. If this particular thing is a credit card however, forget it. All you get is a bombardment of warnings. “Be careful!”, “Don’t spend more than you have.”, “Stay out of debt.” It leaves me clawing at the heels of my friends and family, begging them to cease their useless and boring speeches about how one day I’ll be living on the streets because I bought a Mac and couldn’t pay it off. Okay, maybe, um, settle down, please, thanks? I get it. I’m not stupid. I understand how a credit card works.

Credit is not money. Credit is credit. If you purchase an item with credit and wait for the monthly statement to arrive it accumulates fees, such as interest. You must pay interest. Interest can (and will) accumulate and your fees will grow. You will end up paying more money for the item you thought was $1,500. I so very much appreciate the fact my friends and family are concerned about my well being, but a little “credit” for being moderately intelligent would be okay once in a while too. The only person who did actually congratulate me was my boss at work. Very happy to hear those words.

Animal Crossing: City Folk

I was really surprised at the effectiveness of this games for the Nintendo Wii. This is the third Animal Crossing game I’ve purchased in my life time, and it’s even more effective now that it’s been brought into 2008. Animal Crossing: City Folk takes all of the elements that made the original and Wild World great and combines them into one jam packed disc of fun content!

The  basis of Animal Crossing stays the same between the 3 games; you move to a new town, get a new house and begin paying off your mortgage by doing little tasks such as selling fruit, catching fish & bugs or doing favours for your animal neighbors (just to name a few). While you’re doing this you can also donate money (called Bells) to your town in order to upgrade it with little perks, go shopping for cool items in the city or just chill and play with your friends with Nintendo WFC. The aim of the game really hits close to home for many different player types. If you enjoy relaxing, this game is for you. If you enjoy sim games. Get this game! If you’re into collecting things and meeting objectives, you’ll enjoy AC. There’s always something to do in the world of Animal Crossing, and because the clock ticks by in real time…stuff even happens while you don’t play!

I somehow managed to play for 6 hours today…which is abnormal for me. O_O

…

Damn.

Sorry Jack & HRG…

Sorry that Stephen sent you to your early graves, that is. What Mr. Bauer and Mr. Bennet don’t know, is that Peter has the fortunate capability of stopping time, teleporting, regenerating, hurling fistfulls of lightning, flying, reading minds, freezing things, moving objects with his mind, exploding like a nuclear bomb, painting the future and growing perfect man stubble JUST TO NAME A FEW. How anyone could think two gun wielding maniacs could ever take such a reckoning force is beyond me.

Plus, even in the worst case scenario you DID somehow manage to even scratch Peter…would you really want the vengence of his mother to crush your like an ant? Think on it.

You have until October 28th to surrender your Empire and all it’s riches.

Relocating the Troops

After a crazy old man in a dress told me that I couldn’t pass, I had no other choice but to head back to the base and figure out where things stood from there. It was then, in this moment that I decided it was time to relocate my troops to another area of the battle field, and call in the most helpful person on the planet.

Attack, PETER! Explode Stephen and his army.

Planet Stephen is Under Attack

I am officially launching an attack on Planet Stephen. Your Empire will fall! >:)

“Oh the weather outside…”

It started off as a chilly day, but I didn’t think it would get colder as the day went on. Boy was I wrong…when I went outside to catch the after school bus I could see my breath! I heard we might actually have a chance of seeing a few snowflakes tonight which would be pretty cool. I’ve never disliked the snow, but I do grumble occasionally when I need to wait outside in the morning to catch the bus to school. Nothing sucks more than having to wake up from your warm bed to stand outside in nature’s “coolest” weather. The temperature is supposed to drop down to -2 degrees celsious (about 24 fahrenheit) tonight which is probably the coldest it’s been yet where I live. Just a few more words on this: Brr! Brr! Brr!

I had a pretty lazy day at school today. I couldn’t find my box of contact lenses so I was quite blind today. Film studies was fun because I couldn’t really see the movie and whenever my teacher was talking to me I thought for sure they were looking at other “Ryans” in the room. It was pretty brutal. I could have worn my glasses I suppose, but I’ve never liked wearing them. I think it’s the frames…I’ve had the same frames since grade 7 so I’m pretty sure all I need to do is pick out a new style. In many ways I don’t like wearing my contact lenses because they irritate me to the point of no return and they seem to dry out far too quickly for someone like me. I’m always on the computer, so this is to be expected I guess. Glasses have always been more practical and it’s definitely my first choice if I’m just going to be staying around the house. Frames are a bit expensive from my doctor’s office though, so I guess I’ve just been putting it off for the obvious reason. I just received a pretty nice pay cheque though so I should probably invest a bit of time into looking for a new look. I wonder if I could pull off the HRG look? haha

Ah! Speaking of Heroes, I think they did a pretty good job last night of pulling the storyline back just a little bit. Last night’s episode didn’t seem to be all about the flash. I also like how they wrapped up Hiro’s little ordeal with Ando. I won’t post any spoilers here, but I will in the Community Chat topic so be sure to check it out!